Cash machines are dying, and it’s not all down to debit cards

Cash machines are dying. And it’s not all down to people using debit cards, says Merryn somerset Webb. Rock-bottom interest rates are playing their part, too.

People using cash machines © Dinendra Haria/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Cash machines: are their days numbered?
(Image credit: People using cash machines © Dinendra Haria/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Why not turn an old cardboard box "into a cash machine with buttons and pretend screen for lots of pretend play with money"? That's one of the suggestions listed in a press release from BMO Global Asset Management on the matter of how to keep your children entertained over half term. There are various other unattractive ideas (bury money in mud for the kids to dig up ). But this is by far the most useless.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.